Egypt continues to threaten Nile Basin countries.

[AM2]

I personally think it's highly unlikely Egypt will bomb the Renaissance Dam. To begin with, what exactly will they be bombing? The powerhouse is underground, so they can never get to those with conventional bombs. The dam itself is a huge mass of concrete, and although I'm no military expert, I'm pretty sure it will take a lot of bombing before anyone can bring it down, and the Ethiopian airforce will not be just sitting on their ass while this is going on. And then even if they bring it down, the dam being so close to Sudan, what follows will be a catastrophic flood that will affect dams and cities in Sudan. They can probably destroy transmission lines, canals, spillways etc, but all that can be rebuilt. So I really do not think bombing the dam will benefit Egypt. And once they've crossed that line, there is no going back for all parties involved. So I don't see what Egypt will gain by bombing the dam ...

[AM2]

I found this interesting article on wikipedia about operation chastise in the second world war, where the allies tried bombing german hydroelectric dams. The result wasn't impressive, with two dams being damaged, but returning to full capacity after a few months:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operati...ect_on_the_war

"Operation Chastise was an attack on German dams carried out on 16–17 May 1943 by Royal Air Force No. 617 Squadron, subsequently known as the "Dambusters", using a specially developed "bouncing bomb" invented and developed by Barnes Wallis. The Möhne and Edersee Dams were breached, causing catastrophic flooding of the Ruhr valley and of villages in the Eder valley, while the Sorpe dam sustained only minor damage. The damage was mitigated by rapid repairs by the Germans, with production returning to normal in September."

The bombs they used were pretty interesting too:

"Wallis's initial idea was to drop a 10 t (9.8 long tons; 11 short tons) bomb from an altitude of about 40,000 ft (12,200 m). This idea was part of the earthquake bomb concept. However, at that time no bomber aircraft was capable of flying at that altitude with such a heavy payload. A much smaller explosive charge would suffice, if it could be exploded directly against the dam wall below the surface of the water, but the major German reservoir dams were protected by heavy torpedo nets to prevent such an attack.
Wallis's breakthrough overcame this. A drum-shaped bomb spinning backwards at over 500 rpm, dropped at a sufficiently low altitude at the correct speed, would skip for a significant distance over the surface of the water in a series of bounces before reaching the dam wall. Its residual spin would run the bomb down the side of the dam to its underwater base. Using a hydrostatic fuse, an accurate drop could bypass the dam's defences and enable the bomb to explode against the dam."

[Ras Siyan]

That was a dumb & unecessary statement by that Saudi minister. I'm so with Ethiopia on this one. I think Djibouti should even use it's Arab League membership to defend Ethiopia's rights on the Nile within the League.